1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to display of a list of minified pictures of a multi-view picture and a single-view picture. The present invention also relates to recording of minified pictures of a multi-view picture and a single-view picture.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a general stereo picture display system, a picture drawn from a viewpoint of a right eye and a picture drawn from a viewpoint of a left eye are presented to a right eye and a left eye, respectively. Normally, in such two pictures from viewpoints of a right eye and a left eye (hereinafter, referred to as a multi-view picture), objects at a distant position from the viewpoints are viewed to be approximately same because the lines of sight from both eyes are approximately parallel so that the pictures are drawn at the approximately same position. On the contrary, objects at a near position to the viewpoints are viewed to be different because the lines of sight from both eyes are not parallel so that the pictures are drawn at different positions. When such a picture with parallax (hereinafter, referred to as a parallax picture) is viewed from a right eye and a left eye, an observer recognizes perspective to the object.
Approaches to generation of a parallax picture include a graphical approach of using two cameras at left and right to shoot a subject and showing a gained parallax picture in a 3-dimensional form using ocular deception, and 3-dimensional computer graphic (3-dimensional CG) display to generate a parallax picture by viewing transformation of model data from viewpoints of both left and right eyes using a computer graphic technique. The 3-dimensional computer graphic display is commonly referred to as virtual 3-dimensional display or pseudo 3-dimensional display.
In the graphical approach, a 3D monitor in the parallax barrier system or in the lenticular lens system is used for stereoscopic display of a parallax picture. In the parallax barrier system, a parallax barrier is produced that has a pattern in which a light transmission part and a light shielding part are alternately arranged in a parallax barrier display layer at a predetermined pitch, and striped picture pieces indicating left and right images are alternately arranged and displayed on a picture display surface being the lower layer, so that the parallax picture can be viewed stereoscopically.
Alternatively, in the graphical approach, a lenticular scheme using a lenticular lens sheet, an integral photography scheme using a micro lens array sheet, or a holography scheme using an interference phenomenon is employed, for example.
In general computer graphics, an object defined in a 3-dimensional space is represented as a group of a plurality of polygons (polygonal shapes). As a polygon, the simplest triangle is normally used. Coordinates of each polygon constituting the object is transformed from object coordinates of the polygon to 3-dimensional coordinates based on the position of a viewpoint of an observer, i.e., visual-field coordinates using a mathematical approach such as a vector or matrix. Further, for display on a display apparatus, coordinate transformation is performed for perspective projection of the polygon represented in the visual-field coordinates on a 2-dimensional plane (perspective transformation). Position data of the final polygon subjected to the series of coordinate transformations includes a value Z representing a distance from a viewpoint in a direction perpendicular to the display (Z-axis), a value X and a value Y representing position coordinates in the display surface.
A method of deciding the color value of a pixel constituting each polygon includes a method of arranging a virtual light source on visual-field coordinates, physically calculating the intensity of light radiated on each vertex constituting the polygon from the light source, and obtaining the light intensity of each pixel position in a rasterizing process in the polygon from the value by linear interpolation.
Alternatively, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-24850 discloses a method of pasting a picture representing a texture or special pattern of the object surface called a texture to the polygon surface. In this method, position coordinates and texture coordinates are given to each vertex of a polygon constituting an object at a stage of object coordinates before coordinate transformation. Then, similarly to the above case using the light intensity, texture coordinates are linearly interpolated for each pixel position in a polygon rasterizing process, and the color value of the pixel is decided depending on the obtained texture coordinates.
The above procedure can generate a graphic picture from a particular viewpoint. However, to generate a parallax picture for stereoscopic vision as the above, a multi-view picture is generated by moving the viewpoint position to the positions of a right eye and a left eye and drawing the identical object for two times. An expensive system comprises a display apparatus which can realize a graphical approach as the above to generate a multi-view picture.
On the other hand, conventionally, if a storage apparatus stores both of a multi-view picture and a normal picture without parallax, a technique displays minified pictures of those pictures to be differentiated. Electronic equipment according to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-120165 comprises a display apparatus which can realize a graphical approach. To display a list of thumbnail pictures in a plane, the apparatus adds a symbol “3D” to a thumbnail picture corresponding to a 3-dimensional picture and represents the picture in a circle or an ellipse. It adds a symbol “2D” to a thumbnail picture corresponding to a 2-dimensional picture and represents the picture in a triangle. In this way, it makes the thumbnail created from the 2-dimensional picture and the thumbnail created from the 3-dimensional picture to be differentiated.
Further, conventionally, an imaging method is proposed to improve a stereoscopic vision effect even if a subject is at long range. For example, according to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-51872; camera units are provided on both edges of an open chassis, thereby improving an effect of a stereo picture even if a subject is at long range.